With today's local telephone service, there are a variety of calling plans that a customer may have. The calling plans vary from one service provider to another, but typically, a service provider may include a calling plan for local telephone service and long distance telephone service. The local telephone service may include features such as a flat rate dialing or a measured rate dialing. The long distance telephone service may include a feature called toll calling.
The flat rate dialing allows the customer to dial another customer as many times as possible but only pay a flat fee over a set period. Usually, this period is a month, but may be longer or shorter depending on the features offered by the service provider. The service provider, with approval from a public utility commission or public service commission, establishes a region whereby the customer may use the flat rate dialing. The region may be a physical area encompassing many customers such as a city, suburb, or metropolitan area. Or, the region may be defined by a number of telecommunication switches located in a particular area. In either case, the flat rate dialing is established over a fixed area. Within that area, customers may call each other as many times as possible for the flat rate.
The measured rate dialing is similar to flat rate in that a fixed area is established for the customer to dial other customers. However, the customer's rate for the local call may vary depending on the distance or time of the telephone call. For example, a telephone call to a customer two miles away may be cheaper than a telephone call to another customer five miles away. Likewise, a telephone call lasting ten minutes may be cheaper than a telephone call lasting thirty minutes, even though the telephone call may be made to the same customer.
The type of local telephone service that the customer may have depends on the offerings of the service provider and the type of package selected by the customer. In either case, a fixed area or region is involved to establish boundaries or limits for the local telephone service. These boundaries or limits are usually explained to customers in details so that the customer understands how their local telephone service may be used.
The customer may have long distance telephone service to complement the local telephone service. Since local telephone service only allows the customer to call another customer within a certain distance, long distance telephone service allows the customer to extend that reach to call other customers that are located at a greater distance from their home or business. Long distance telephone service may be defined as telephone service extended beyond the local telephone service.
A particular type of long distance telephone service is toll calling. One may find various definitions for toll calling using such terms as in-state long distance, regional toll, local long distance, or shorter distance calls. Toll calling usually includes telephone calls made at greater distances than local telephone calls. In some cases, toll calling may be viewed as the grey area of telephone dialing. In one aspect, it looks like it should be included in the local telephone service given the distances involved. In another aspect, it looks like it should be included in the long distance telephone service for the same reason. Regardless of either aspect, toll calling may include rates that are charged on a per call basis. This means that each telephone call is charged for time or distance for the telephone call. However, some service providers have become creative in their product offerings and now offer toll calling on a flat rate basis similar to local telephone service. With any plan that is accepted for toll calling, the customer may usually pay more for toll calling than local telephone service because of the distances involved in dialing other customers.
As mentioned above, the public utility commission or public service commission is usually involved in determining and approving local calling areas and toll calling areas. References to the public utility commission or public service commission in this document shall be made with the acronym PUC.
One of the main functions of the PUC is to regulate rates and tariffs associated with telephone service in a particular area. PUCs may be found in various states and counties throughout the United States and usually provide information regarding service providers, rate plans, and other information for consumers. In regulating telephone service, PUCs make changes from time-to-time in the calling plans of service provider based on a variety of factors. For example, if a metropolitan area has grown in size, the PUC may require service providers to enlarge the local calling area. The PUC may also impose the type of rate plans that may be offered in the local calling area. Likewise, the PUC may enlarge the toll calling area and control rates in this type of calling also.
One problem that has occurred in recent years involve establishing clear boundaries between local calling and long distance calling. Over the years, communities have grown and technology has improved such that a local calling area may include more than one telecommunication exchange or switch. Oftentimes, the telecommunication exchange boundaries are located in awkward places and do not coincide with the community, causing the community to use toll calling for what should be local calling. This means that the customers in this situation may pay higher rates for telephone calls that really should be treated as local calls. This situation can happen when there is an explosion of population growth in the community. For example, it may seem awkward to allow local calling for a customer in a northern part of a town to call another customer in a southern part of the town at some distance of twenty miles away, but impose toll calling on the customer in the northern part of the town when a call is made to another customer in an adjoining neighborhood two miles to the north. PUCs have tried to rectify this problem by allowing a type of local calling called extended area service (EAS).
EAS may be viewed as local calling with special attributes. EAS grew out of the need from customers to have local calling although the distance of the telephone calls may be similar to that seen under toll calling. PUCs allow EAS in order to allow customers in a particular area to call other customers on either a toll-free basis or a reduced rate basis. In either case, the rates charged for telephone calls to an EAS are cheaper or more economical than if the EAS was still a toll calling area.
In many situations, PUCs provide procedures for customers to petition the PUCs to hear complaints regarding service providers. In the procedures, the PUCs accept petitions from customers to allow conversion of a toll calling area to EAS. Usually, the customer has to prove why an area should be converted from the toll calling area to EAS. This step may include various hearings but it is one mechanism to get the toll calling area changed to an EAS area. In another case, PUCs may undertake the responsibility unilaterally to impose on service providers the burden to change from the toll calling area to EAS. This may occur if their has been a significant growth in the community beyond an established local calling area, or if the PUC has received a lot of complaints as to the rates charged for calling a particular area.
When the PUC approves or impose the plan to convert a toll calling area to an EAS, service providers have the burden of making all of the equipment changes to handle the potential increased in dialing. The service providers may perform studies to determine the right resources needed to handle the new dialing area. The service provider have to educate their customers on the new EAS. Usually, PUCs allow the service providers to recoup the costs associated with migrating from the toll calling area to EAS. However, the service providers must prove their costs and provide reports regarding their plans and progress.
Today, the process for converting from the toll calling area to EAS is manually-driven and takes a very long time to implement. Information has to be gathered regarding the current local calling area and the customers that reside in it. Information has to be gathered regarding the proposed EAS and the customers in that area too. In addition, information has to be calculated regarding the current telephone call volume and the potential increase in telephone call volume that may occur after an area is converted to EAS. Each telecommunication exchange may be examined to determine the increase in capacity that may be needed and the billing structure that may be imposed. Also, there may need to be a plan for provisioning new telecommunication exchanges, and facilities associated with the telecommunication exchanges. The facilities may include a plan for increased number of trunks between two areas. A trunk is a communications path connecting two telecommunication exchanges or switches in a network, used to establish an end-to-end connection.
A solution is needed that would provide a faster way to migrate customers from a toll calling area to an EAS. The solution should reduce engineering time in planning, calculating, and forecasting resources to perform the migration. It should also allow a smoother transition and a better flow of information when involving multiple organizations to carry out the migration. Information may be available faster to the various organizations that may need it.